Pope Invites Armenians to Put Massacre in Context of Jesus' Passion

Encourages Them to Use Genocide Anniversary to Draw Strength for Joyful Proclamation of Gospel

Pope Francis

Pope Francis will celebrate a Mass in the Armenian Catholic
rite this Sunday, marking the 100th anniversary of the massacre of
hundreds of thousands of Armenians in what is considered by many the
first genocide of the 20th century.

The Pope today addressed a delegation of 20 bishops of the Synod of
the Armenian Catholic Church, in Rome for this Sunday’s service, which
will be celebrated in the context of Divine Mercy Sunday.

During the Mass, St. Gregory of Narek will be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church.In 1915 and the following years, vast numbers of Armenians were
killed within the Ottoman Empire as it broke apart. April 24, the day
the massacre began, is marked as Genocide Day in Armenia. The massacre
began that day when hundreds of intellectuals, doctors, lawyers,
journalists, priests and other representatives of the Armenian culture
and politics were arrested and eventually killed.

The massacre is a politically touchy theme because Turkey protests the use of the term genocide to refer to the events.

The Pope alluded to that debate, saying in his address today, “We
will invoke the Divine Marcy so that it will help us all, in love for
truth and for justice, to heal every wound and to hasten concrete
gestures of reconciliation and peace between Nations that still do not
succeed in reaching a reasonable consensus on the reading of such sad
events.”

Pope Francis also spoke of the persecution of the Armenians in light
of ongoing persecution of Christians today, referring to the conflict in
Syria by saying: “I think with sadness in particular of those areas
such as that of Aleppo -- the Bishop told me [it is] ‘the martyr city’
-- that 100 years ago were a sure landing place for the few survivors.”

Admirable patrimonyThe Holy Father spoke of the Armenian people traditionally held to be
the first to convert to Christianity as having a “2,000-year history”
with an “admirable patrimony of spirituality and culture, united to a
capacity to rise again after the many persecutions and trials to which
it has been subjected.”He invited them to be grateful “for having been able to maintain fidelity to Him even in the most difficult times.”

And he encouraged prayer for “the gift of wisdom of heart.”“The commemoration of the victims of 100 years ago puts us in fact
before the darkness of the mysterium iniquitatis,” he said. “It is not
understood without this attitude.”“[F]or believers,” he continued, “the question of evil carried out by
man introduces also to the mystery of participation in the redemptive
Passion. [...] The long-suffering pages of the history of your people
continue, in a certain sense, the Passion of Jesus, but in each one of
them the bud is placed of his Resurrection. May you Pastors not fail in
the commitment to educate the lay faithful to know how to read the
reality with new eyes, to be able to say every day: my people are not
only those suffering for Christ, but especially risen ones in Him.”

Remembering the past is important, the Pontiff affirmed, but “to draw
from it new lymph to nourish the present with the joyful proclamation
of the Gospel and with the testimony of charity.”United in blood

The Pope also spoke of the Pontiff who tried to stop the genocide,
Benedict XV, who intervened with Sultan Mehmet V in an attempt to put an
end to the massacre.“This Pontiff was a great friend of the Christian East: he instituted
the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Oriental
Institute, and in 1920 he inscribed Saint Ephrem the Syrian among the
Doctors of the universal Church,” Francis noted. “I am happy that our
meeting occurs on the eve of the analogous gesture that on Sunday I will
have the joy to carry out with the great figure of Saint Gregory of
Narek.”

He concluded with a word on Christian unity: “I entrust to his
intercession especially the ecumenical dialogue between the Armenian
Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church, mindful of the fact
that 100 years ago as today, martyrdom and persecution have already
realized ‘the ecumenism of blood.’”* * *
Zenit.org

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Ambassador T. Brikins is a Writer Blogger, Mass Communications Consultant and Inforpreneur having experiences in the National News Media, Oil and Gas, Administration, University and the Church of Christ..
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